Lookout Mountain & Sand Mountain; Check
So I haven't taken an actual vacation from Coptix since I started a year and a half ago, and the 60 hour weeks were finally starting to get to me. My ulcer was back in full form, so I finally decided that even if it technically isn't a vacation since I'm actually missing any monday-friday work, I was going to dissapear as best I could this past Saturday & Sunday with April.
I'm sortof a compulsive explorer; when I first came to Covenant I systematically checked out every hall, closet, and tunnel underneath the chapel (there are a couple off of drama storage). I've really wanted to checkout Lookout Mtn past Cloudland Canyon. I've been enamored of those big topography maps like the one dear Barb Scheur had in her office, and while checking them out I always wanted to know what the mountain looked like on down into Alabama.
So April and I hit the road Saturday morning and headed down scenic highway. I've gotta say, past Cloudland it starts to feel pretty remote, like you're up on this remote plateau above even the rural world. Almost like you're the rural-rural. When I was a kid I was fascinated by this 1989 edition of National Geographic which had an article about Tepius. Cruising down no-where Lookout Mtn is almost what I imagined being on top of a tepiu.
Eventually we made it to Mentone, this surreal little mountain kinda resort town where I think alot of monied 'Bama folks have their summer homes. Then outta nowhere we found Little River Canyon National Preserve, which was ridiculously beautiful (the canyon is the gash in the middle of this image).
After that we headed on towards Weis Lake and on to Piedmont, which is this little crossroads town next to a big swatch of official "wilderness." Strange to think of wilderness in Alabama, but there it is, tucked away in this patch of mountains in northeastern Alabama.
Next we hit the town of Gadsden. Poor Gadsden. It wants so desperately to be a hip little town, reinvented and restored after the post-industrial fallout. Home of a GE Firestone tire plant, a dead steel mill and a dead cotton mill, there's not a whole lot of civic inertia taking it anywhere. We met one really nice lady who ran this rather swank furniture store (pic is centered on the building) with some incredible Bevolo hand made gas lamps which I've been eyeing for this house April and I have our eye on.
Anyways, from what the lady tells me, she believes that Gadsden can make the big renewal jump. It did have a rather amazing downtown in terms of buildings, space, and a coherent layout, unfortunately it was middle afternoon on a Saturday and April and I didn't see a soul around. Some of the buildings were downright amazing, the perfect 100 year old industrial brick buildings that are perfect for conversions into office/loft space. Unfortunately they were all either closed down, up for rent, or nobody was showing up to do commerce at the ones present. Who knows, it was just a couple hours on a chilly spring afternoon. Maybe Gadsden will be giving Chattanooga a run for its money in 10-15 years.
After Gadsden it was north to Guntersville. Why Guntersville might you ask? Well, if you check this image, you can see its on a peninsula, which I think is really cool. In Guntersville April and I hit an "Art on the Lake" show, and by art I mean things like a group of large women selling bags filled with candy with the bags being carefully made out of various candy wrappers. That's right, their "art" was making bags out of the wrappings of their candy to hold more candy. I started laughing and people looked at me funny.
So April and I picked up some liquor and decided to cruise along the lake to find some seafood. After awhile and some helpful local ladies at a BP, we made our way to The Docks at Goose Pond Colony, which is this swankish type resort place outside of Scottsboro (which most folks know as home to Unclaimed Baggage!). The food was good, the atmosphere was good, and the service was great.
After dinner I can state as an absolute fact, that there are NO hotels in Scottsboro, Alabama with a jacuzzi. The one downside to the trip.
So we slep in and decided to cross the lake and explore Sand Mountain which is the mountain across Lookout Valley from Lookout Mountain. Sand Mountain dun got famous for the book by Dennis Covington entitled "Salvation on Sand Mountain: Snake Handling & Redemption in Southern Appalachia", which as you can probably tell by its title, is about a number of snake handling churches up on Sand Mountain. April and I tried to find one to stop at, but unfortunately we didn't find any that advertised "Snakes Handled Here!" on their signs.
So we wandered alot of back roads, trying to stay in a general north-northest direction. Eventually we made our way past all the Ford pickups and '87 Chrysler LeBaron's to head on down the north end of the mountain to Nick-A-Jack Cave.
After that it was a short trip down 24 back home. We then hung out with the Holton's all afternoon and evening where we played alot of cards, grilled out, and watched half of Oceans 12 because blockbuster gave us a scratched DVD. On the way back down from the Holtons we stopped by blockbuster and they gave me a new one, along with a bag o' Twizzlers. Gotta have the Twizzlers.
For two days I think I only thought about work a dozen times, and I checked myself each time it started. That's really not alot.
Chattanooga News | By Josiah Roe | 1:28 PM
Comments
I wanna start a bluegrass band called Nick-a-Jack Cave and the Bad Seeds.
Posted by: John Totten at April 25, 2005 2:26 PM
Oh, man. I had that issue of National Geographic when I was a kid. I thought tepius were the most fantastic places ever, terrifying lost worlds where anything could happen. I think this may definitively explain why we are friends.
Posted by: mesh at April 25, 2005 2:36 PM
Was that the 1989 National Geographic with the hologram cover? I kept mine for years.
You could've stopped by Liberty Baptist Church on Sand Mountain who are one of the few still doing Sacred Harp. I think they recorded the 'Cold Mountain' Sacred Harp there.
Posted by: Nat at April 25, 2005 3:05 PM
Holy cow I'm really jealous. Maybe Fiance and I can do that someday.
Posted by: Krista at April 25, 2005 4:00 PM
Just getting back to you. I'm guessing that if you explored Sacto, you explored the Sierra foothills and mountains. I took a topo map into Yosemite once and climbed an offbeat peak with some friends. Whoa! We had read topo wrong. We were climbing 500 ft every quarter mile. Halfway up blisters were bubbling on both feet and so I called it a day--my friends weren't happy. Or maybe they were and just blamed me. Anyway, we sat around for awhile before descending and caught a bunch of stings from yellow jackets.
Posted by: johnny at April 26, 2005 7:30 AM
Hey Josiah, when you get back, could you get some kind of anti-spam thing installed on my weblog? I'm getting a torrent of spam lately and it's driving me nuts.
Posted by: scott cunningham at April 26, 2005 10:21 AM
